Black Encyclopedia Of The Air - Moor Mother: Review
Moor Mother
is the musical project of Camae Ayewa a Philly based artist who has dabbled in numerous experimental takes on hip hop, jazz and spoken word across 4 studio albums. In 2020 she ramped up her output with a pair of collaborative records, first teaming up with Mental Jewelry for the Moor Jewelry record True Opera. Then followed it up with the billy woods pairing BRASS. Her experimental sound and sonic fusions have made her a critical darling across the last few years.
Review By Lav:
I was late on Moor Mother I'm willing to admit that. 2016's Fetish Bones slid by me and I didn't hear it until 2018 at which point I still didn't fully get it. Last years Moor Jewelry project was what really made it click for me and revisiting some of Moor Mother's older records at which point I really came around to her discography. That plus a couple of singles that I really dug got me excited for Black Encyclopedia Of The Air and that proved to be for good reason. The record is a murky, contemplative and sonically unique collection of short tracks that mostly hit the right notes.
Zami was my favorite of the records singles and what really got me excited for the project. It's got a heavy distorted instrumental that rumbles underneath a gritty vocal performance from Moor Mother. It's amazing how she manages to sound so intense while performing so quietly. The song shows up towards the end of the album and actually adds some thematic context to the closer, which makes me appreciate it even more. In this same vein there's Rogue Waves a badass cut where she feels almost braggadocios as an MC. She pins some effortlessly slick lyrics about her resilience, personality and talent. The rattling, almost coffee house style beat gives her a strong palette to work with. Mangrove features the instuntly recognizable vocals of Armand Hammer's Elucid and Moor Mother manages to go toe to toe with him. The beat actually sounds like something you could have heard on the Armand Hammer and Alchemist collab earlier this year but it's the two stellar verses that are the star of the show.
On the more experimental side the opening track Temporal Control of Light Echoes, a murky introduction to the record that sees Moor Mother driving into a variety of social dynamics. She repeatedly refers to "this place" almost like she's seeing the whole album as a space that exists separately from reality and you're being guided into it. Vera Hall is a song about transforming historically racist places in the south into places for southern black people to develop their own cultural identity. It's a really interesting idea for a song topic that's pulled off really well with a dreamy instrumental that features some gorgeous vocal samples and a synth line that warbles wonderfully into the distance.
Made A Circle is a tribute to everything female and a wonderful display of love and humanity with a pair of killer features and one of the records most memorable hooks. It has a smooth beat that is bright by the records standards and even though this has nothing to do with anything some of the percussion sounds like the Korok's maracas from Zelda Wind Waker and I'm very into it. Tarot the records longest song and it deals primarily in spoken word vocals and an extremely unsettling instruments. There are all kinds of tribal vocals and instrumentation that work their way in and out of the song as it shifts between pounding driving moments and more revealing abstraction. It feels like a bit of a paranoid downward spiral and it's one of the most compelling things on the entire record.
The record is formatted as a series of short songs that are connected thematically a lot more than they are sonically. This makes some of the shorter and more nondescript tracks fail to stand out. Among the more notable ones are Race Function Limited with Brother May and Obsidian with Pink Siifu. That doesn't mean that the record completely escapes without some misses.
Shekere was a really weird choice for a single as it's a murky cut that trudges along on purpose. I wish the refrains were clearer, particularly from the featured rappers, were a lot higher in the mix. The whole thing comes off too low impact to be a highlight. Clock Fight is the closing track and I'm not crazy about it as a finale even though there are individual parts of it I really like. The sonic elements don't quite come together as well on this song and they feel like they're placed alongside each other almost to be perfectly distracting. Regardless the track ends sooner than I'd like and feels like an underwhelming way to end the record off.
Black Encyclopedia is a thematically fascinating and sonically experimental half hour, but it does have it's limitations. Occasionally the production makes it difficult to feel the impact of the records nuances and the short format occasionally takes the focus away from compelling songwriting. Despite those shortcomings I was really intrigued by Moor Mother as a versatile lyricist and performer once again on this record and I continue to look forward to what indulgent new direction she'll go in next. 7.5/10
Album Cover Review by Tyler Judson:
This cover is cool and a nice way to have a slice of fantasy in an otherwise simple composition. The background is a little overpowering and bleeds into the art itself. The purple color is nice to break up the harsh black. The text is also blocked nicely so that your eye it looking directly at the branding. Overall pretty successful. 6.5/10
For more experimental rap check out my review of Injury Reserve's By The Time I Get To Phoenix here
